I have an 87 F-150 with manual locking hubs. I recently had a tire fall off and the locking hub went right along with it into the woods where can't find it. I've had tons of trouble finding a replacement part. I wanted to know if i could still drive my truck in 2wd while I'm missing the manual locking hub.

 

You have the dreaded flange hubs. They were only used in one year. They are very hard to find parts for. If you plan on keeping the truck for a while, you're better off getting a Dana 44 from a junkyard and swapping it with what you have.

 

good old "tophat" hublocks.
as Andy said, you would be better off looking for a F150 D44 with bolt on locking hubs.
it will probably be cheaper to replace the complete front axle than to find and buy one hublock.

 

Nothing good about them. The stupid high shear nut isn't up to the task of the stress from the 35" tires. Last Summer, I grabbed a spindle off of a Bronco in the junkyard as a spare for my Bronco since don't think they are available anymore. I agree you'd be better off grabbing either a complete front axle assembly or just the axle shafts and spindles from the junkyard. As you may already know the auto hub version in '87 - early '88 used the regular style spindle and hub. Last time I saw them available was from JBG at almost $200?

 

Did you locate another hub?

 

I think someone took my front passenger hub and replaced it with a damaged red one and it should be white

 

Is it possible some one took my hub

 

The center dial that you turn is screwed on and can be easily swapped out in a couple minutes. On the other hand, in order to remove the “top hat” manual hub on an ‘87-88 1/2 you would have to remove the tire. It would be pretty obvious it they took the whole assembly. The OEM color from Warn was red. Their aftermarket replacements are black.